Training Manager: Poseidon Sea Pilots

10 years back in time: Port of London Authority Pilot Jon Stafford talks about his work and the challenges of guiding large ships safely into and out of the Port of London.

It's on the Tees, vessel is the Saltholme.

Every ship transporting goods to, from or through the Arctic wants to find the fastest and safest way through or around the ice. Even service ice breakers save considerable amounts of time and fuel when they choose an easy path through the ice opposed to a straight path.

Vessels are required by law to have a trained maritime pilot on board responsible for safely navigating the ship to its desired destination. However, ensuring safe navigation inside dock environments is demanding as mistakes can be extremely costly, time-consuming to correct, and even fatal. An assisting tool working autonomously to support the maritime pilot by predicting possible collisions would lower the risk involved with navigating the vessel.

Una nave cisterna, con l aiuto dei rimorchiatori, ormeggia in banchina.
A tanker, with the help of tugs, moors on the quay.

The pilots make docking mega-ships look easy despite the meteorological disturbance.
Great pictures from Morocco

Brief footage of a maritime pilot disembarking the Disney Magic and boarding his pilot boat as we left Nassau in January 2022.

milford pilots during lock down

Capt. Nasir Khan is responsible for the content and copyright of this film and kindly provided us with this video.